Save $50 a Day: The Complete List

published 1 March 2009

We searched for big gains -- with little pain. The result? We sliced food bills by $2,794, found $1,214 in savings on utility costs, discovered leisure for $2,241 less, cut $3,715 in fees from banking and loans, plus shaved transportation costs by $2,827.

All the ideas listed in the section below reduce your cost-of-living by $18,250 per year. Break it down and you're saving $50 a day. See which ones work for you. Plus, find out how three super savers do it. (Don't forget to add your tips in the Comment Box below.

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4. Get Free Checking No Minimum? No Matter: Brick-and-mortar banks charge an average fee of $12 per month for checking accounts and require an average minimum balance of almost $3,500 to avoid it. If you use direct deposit or make five or more debit-card purchases each month, Chase offers a free account with no minimum balance required. Or bank online at Salem Five Bank, pay no monthly fees, and earn 2.75%.

5. Use Cash-Back Cards Savings Really Add Up: Tired of accruing airline miles that you can never redeem? Switch to a cash-back credit card and earn enough in a year to pay for a coast-to-coast ticket. If you spend $850 a month for 12 months using Blue Cash from American Express, you could see a $250 credit on your bill at the end of the period. Even charging $550 a month on basics such as groceries, gas and drugstore purchases can put money in your pocket.

6. Bounce No More Sign Up for Free Alerts: The average bounced-check fee has increased 34% over the past ten years and is now $29, according to Bankrate.com. If you never balance your checkbook, sign up for your bank's free alerts to warn you if your balance drops to the preset amount of your choice. Need a safety net? You can get overdraft protection. Just be sure you know how much you're paying for it.

Slashing your rate from 6.75% to 5.25% on a 30-year loan will save you 17% on your monthly payment. On a $200,000 mortgage, that translates into a savings of almost $193 per month. For your own situation, use the How much will my payment be? calculator at Kiplinger.com. Of course, for a refi to pay off, you must stay in the house long enough to recoup any closing costs, which typically amount to 2% to 4% of the loan.

1. Slash Investing Costs They Drag Down Performance: The average diversified U.S. stock mutual fund charges 1.3% a year in expenses. If your fund isn't beating its benchmark (or you don't have the time to monitor actively managed funds), you're better off buying a low-cost index fund or ETF that hews to the benchmark. For instance, Fidelity Spartan 500 Index fund (symbol FSMKX), which tracks Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, has an annual expense ratio of just 0.10%. And indexing isn't a compromise strategy. Managers of many top pension funds and endowments swear by it.

1. Reshop Life Insurance Rates Are Lower, Even Though You're Older: Premiums have plummeted over the past decade, and you may be able to save hundreds of dollars by reshopping your policy, even though you're older now. Term-insurance prices varied widely in 1998, and many major insurers were charging a 40-year-old man at least $750 per year for a $500,000, 20-year term policy. Today, a healthy 50-year-old man can buy a $500,000 ten-year term policy (which expires in the same year) for just $445 -- a savings of more than $300 per year. Compare prices among dozens of insurers at Accuquote.com.

2. Save on Meds Generics Pummel Pill Prices: Try switching from brand-name prescription drugs to generics or other low-cost alternatives. A 50-year-old couple taking five common drugsÑa cholesterol-lowering medication for each, plus high-blood-pressure and enlarged-prostate drugs for the husband and an osteoporosis drug for the wifeÑcould lower their monthly costs from about $575 to $37 by switching to generics and shopping at a lower-cost pharmacy. Find alternatives for your medications at Destination Rx.

3. Insure for Less Lower Your Home Premiums: Raising the deductible on your homeowners insurance policy from $250 to $1,000 or $2,500 can lower your premiums by 15% to 25% per year.For example, boosting the deductible from $250 to $1,000 on a house insured for $250,000 in northern California reduces the average annual premium at the 22 companies in InsWeb's database by $188; raising the deductible from $250 to $2,500 lowers the average premium by $319.

4. Raise Your Limits Boost the Deductibles: Increasing the deductibles on your comprehensive and collision coverage from $500 to $1,000, or even $2,500, can reduce your premiums by 12% to 18%. For example, boosting the deductibles from $500 to $1,000 would mean a savings of $648 per year, on average, for a northern California family with two teenage drivers, according to the database at InsWeb, an insurance Web site. Raising the deductibles from $250 to $2,500 lowers the average premium by $1,503.

1. Switch Supermarkets Stock Up on Grocery Staples at a Discount: Six-word strategy for saving on food: Get in car. Drive to Costco (Sam's or BJ's). We compared prices on 37 staples at Costco, Safeway and Whole Foods, calculated the prices for equivalent sizes, multiplied the total for each list by 12 (representing monthly shopping expeditions) and added Costco's $50 annual membership to the cost. Result: Costco can supply a family of four with many of the basics for an annual tab of $1,708, followed by Safeway, at $2,417, and Whole Foods, at a pricey $3,498.

Downsizing from a gas guzzler also does the trick. Not all trade-downs are equal, though. For example, beware of swapping a relatively new large crossover for a smaller one with better gas mileage. The money you lose by trading in a newer vehicle (cars typically lose 40% to 50% of their value in the first three years of ownership) may be more than the money you save on gas. One example of a smart new-car downsize: Swap a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe AWD for a 2009 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen. You'll save on both gas and monthly payments without losing all your cargo space. SAVINGS: $1,031

11. Bundle Up for Savings: Competition is a wonderful thing. And phone, wireless, cable and satellite-TV companies are competing like mad to get your business by bundling services at discount prices. Right now, the standard-issue package is $99 for TV, telephone and broadband Internet service. All those services can easily total more than $150 a month if billed separately, so a monthly savings of $20 is a minimum if you go the bundling route.

4. Travel Last-Minute: Whet your wanderlust and save big by booking an impromptu, package-deal vacation at LastMinute.com. Reserved a week before departure, a trip for two from New York City to Amsterdam in early January cost about $2,000, including a round-trip flight and five-night stay in a four-star hotel. If you had planned the same trip several months in advance and booked it all separately, you'd have spent $2,500.